Community of Free Nations of Europe
Not long after the First Great War, it was decided that a new pan-European confederation, running along some semblance of federalism, be created among the nations of mainland Europe, which were by now under the influence of an ideology known today as pan-Salviatism, which called for the unity of Europe as a single nation in an effort to resist the barbarity of Vidalism and an increasingly fervent ethnic nationalism which was making itself felt in the old European possessions in Africa. Although largely successful at keeping Vidalist aggression at bay, the legitimacy of the individual governments and their power were eventually undermined or usurped by the German-led Saviatist party and by the onset of the Second Levantine War fought between almost every power in the world, the CFNE had been subsumed into the so-called Greater Salviatian Staat, with its core territories around the Rhine, Rhone, and Danube rivers and their tributaries. The Potsdam Revolution During the First Great War, the Prussian-led German Reich attempted to take advantage of a diplomatic dispute between Austria and Russia by siding with Austria against Russia's two allies, the French and the British in order to pursue two goals: the first was to re-assert German hegemony over the Low Countries and the two French regions of Alsace and Lorraine, recently annexed by Germany almost half a century ago, the second to pursue Kaiser Wilhelm II's personal desire to humiliate his rivals, the British. Although eventually the Central Powers were victorious, and Germany eventually exacted harsh concessions from the British Empire under the Isle of Wight Treaty, the damage from the war in Europe and the destabilisation of Britain's Empire meant that the world economy was as good as crippled, plunging the world into an economic crisis and eventually political strife. Thus, all that the German Reich managed to achieve was a pyrrhic victory over its rivals. In 1919, the Kaiser was assassinated. Despite having won the war, Kaiser Wilhelm II's rule was anything but orderly - himself being fairly mercurial in personality - and the next heir apparent proved to be just as able as his successor. Whereas Wilhelm II had the benefit of a stable and prosperous Germany, the new Kaiser did not, nor did he have the ability to resolve the problems left behind by Wilhelm II's disastrous war, managing only to alienate the former Kaiser's retainers, Marshalls Hindunburg and Ludendorff. The Salviatist Movement The chaos and violence that followed the fall of the German royalty in 1921, along with the harsh economic reparations exacted from the British Empire following the conclusion of the First Great War in 1919 resulted in a global financial crisis, and eventually the spread of a new form of Socialism, called Vidalism, throughout Western European cities. Vidalist insurgents would eventually wage war against the state, plunging Europe into de facto civil war, waged by communist partisans and their lackeys on one end of society, against industrialists and conservatives shocked by their radical ideology. It was against this backdrop in 1923 that the Salviatist movement was founded by the German army officer Franz Heinrich von Salviatt and several prisoners-of-war with whom von Salviatt fraternised with at Greifswald. Originally called the Forwards! movement, it proposed to found a "great, united, prosperous and pure Europe" - sentiments which eventually were echoed by many leading thinkers and common people in Northern Central Europe. By 1924, similar strands of thought were now present in then France, the Low Countries and Padania. The Salviat Protocol Following the Fourth Great Northern War of 1924-1926, Salviatist Germany's leader, Franz Heinrich von Salviat, put forward a plan for a common defence and socioeconomic policy for continental Europe in recently liberated Vienna, involving most of the powers which had served, victoriously, against the Workers' Republic of Vidalia. This was called the Salviat Protocol, and it established the CFNE as a single European community, with its own administrative capital (where heads of the intergovernmental body would convene) at Copenhagen. The Protocol established foundations for joint efforts at post-war recovery and military assitance, dividing Europe into several military cantonments, based around major cities (which were not devastated). Although the Salviat Protocol promised autonomy, in reality, the European national armed forces were now little more than parochial regiments under the thumbs of their individual commanders, who now convened in Cologne, which was now made the military capital of the Community. Several crises in the decade following the ratification and acceptance of the Salviat Protocol would eventually test it and finally cause it to break down. in the late 20s, a new plague, later known as Wafa's disease, reached war-torn Poland, and eventually resulted in a death toll calculated in thousands, effectively decimating remaining Polish cities, and forcing civilisation there to break down. Around the same time, outbreaks of a new and highly virulent strain of cholera also broke out in Southern Europe, further increasing the misery and degradation of those lands. The frantically heavy-handed response by the member-governments in dealing with these problems eventually caused more troubles for the CFNE, even as the